UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 


THE BOARDMAN LECTURESHIP 
IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS 


JHE INAUGURAL LECTURE 


BY THE FOUNDER 


GLORGE DANA BOARDMAN 





DUKE 
UNIVERSITY 





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THE BOARDMAN LECTURESHIP 
IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS 


(FounpEp ANNO DomiINI 1899) 





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THE BOARDMAN LECTURESHIP 
IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS . 


(FOUNDED ANNO DOMINI 1899.) 


THE INAUGURAL LECTURE 


THE GOLDEN RULE 


DELIVERED BEFORE 
THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 


November Eighteenth, 1900 


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BY 


GEORGE DANA BOARDMAN, D.DiAEED: 


FOUNDER OF THE LECTURESHIP 


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PUBLISHED POR THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 
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THE FOUNDATION. | 


On June 6, 1899, the Trustees of the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania accepted from the Rev. 
George Dana Boardman, D:D., LL.D., and his 
wife a Deed of Gift, providing for a foundation 
to be known as ‘‘The Boardman Lectureship in 
Christian Ethics,’’ the income of the fund to be 
expended solely for the purposes of the Trust. 
Dr. Boardman served the University for twenty- 
three years as Trustee, for a time as Chaplain, 
and often as Ethical Lecturer. Atter provi- 
sion for refunding out of the said income, any 
depreciation which might occur in the capital 
sum, the remainder is to be expended in 
procuring the delivery in each year at the 
University of Pennsylvania, of one or more 
lectures on Christian Ethics from the stand- 
point of the life, example and teachings of the 
Lord Jesus Christ, and in the publication in book 
form, of the said lecture or lectures within four 
months of the completion of their delivery. 
The volume in which they are printed shall 
always have in its forefront a printed statement 
of the history, the outline and terms of the 


Foundation. 


6 


On July 6, 1899, a Standing Committee on 
“The Boardman Lectureship in Christian 
Ethics’’ was constituted, to which shall be 
committed the nominations of the lecturers and 
the publications of the lectures in accordance 
with the Trust. 

On February 6, 1900, on recommendation of 
this committee, the Rev. George Dana Board- 
man, D.D., LL.D., was appointed Lecturer on 
Christian Ethics on the Boardman Foundation 
for the current year. 


THE OUTLINE. 
I. THe PuRPOSE. 


First, the purpose is not to trace the history 
of the various ethical theories; this is already 
admirably done in our own noble University. 
Nor is it the purpose to teach theology, whether 
natural, Biblical, or ecclesiastical. But the 
purpose of this Lectureship is to teach Christian 
Ethics; that is to say, the practical application 
of the precepts and behavior of Jesus CHRIST 
to everyday life. 

And this is the greatest of the sciences. It is 
a great thing to know astronomy; for it is the 
science of mighty orbs, stupendous distances, 


7 


majestic adjustments in time and space. It is 
a great thing to know biology; for it is the 
science of living organisms—of starting, growth, 
health, movements, life itself. It is a great 
thing to know law; for it is the science of legis- 
lation, government, equity, civilization. It is 
a great thing to know philosophy; for it is the 
science of men and things. It is a great thing 
to know theology; for it is the science of God. 
But what avails it to know everything in space 
from atom to star, everything in time from proto- 
plasm to Deity, if we do not know how to man- 
age ourselves amid the complex, delicate, ever- 
varying duties of daily life? What will it profit 
a man if he gain the whole world—the world 
geographical, commercial, political, intellectual, 
and after all lose his own soul? What can a 
University give in exchange for a Christlike 
character? Thus it is that ethics is the science 
of sciences. Very significant is the motto of 
our own noble University—‘‘ Litere Sime Morit- 
bus Vane.” 

And Jesus of Nazareth is the supreme ethical 
authority. When we come to receive from him 
our final awards, he will not ask, ‘“What was 
your theory of atoms? What did you think 
about evolution? What was your doctrine of 


8 


atonement? What was your mode of bap- 
tism?’’ But he will ask ‘‘What did you do 
with Me? Did you accept Me as your personal 
standard of character? Were you a practical 
everyday Christian?’’ Christian Ethics will 
be the judgment test. 

In sum, the purpose of this Lectureship in 
Christian Ethics is to build up human character 
after the model of Jesus Christ’s. 


II. RANGE OF THE LECTURESHIP. 


Secondly, the Range of the Lectureship. 
This range should be as wide as human society 
itself. The following is offered in way of gen- 
eral outline and suggestive hints, each hint 
being of course but a specific or technical illus- 
tration growing out of some vaster underlying 
Principle. 

1. Man’s Heart-Nature.—And, first, man’s 
religious nature. For example: Christian (not 
merely ethical) precepts concerning man’s capac- 
ity for religion; worship; communion; divine- 
ness; immortality; duty of religious observ- 
ances; the Beatitudes; in brief, Manliness in 
Christ. 

2. Man’s Muind-Nature—Secondly, man’s 
intellect-nature. For example: Christian pre- 


9 


cepts concerning reason; imagination; inven- 
tion; esthetics; language, whether spoken, 
written, sung, builded, painted, chiseled, acted, 
etc. 

3. Man's Soctety-Nature—Thirdly, man’s 
society-nature. For example: 

(a) Christian precepts concerning the per- 
sonal life; for instance: conscientiousness, hon- 
esty, truthfulness, charity, chastity, courage, 
independence, chivalry, patience, altruism, etc. 

(b) Christian precepts concerning the family 
life; for instance: marriage; divorce; duties of 
husbands, wives, parents, children, kindred, 
servants; place of woman, etc. 

(c) Christian precepts concerning the busi- 
ness life; for instance: rights of labor; rights of 
capital; right of pecuniary independence; living 
within means; life insurance; keeping morally 
accurate accounts; endorsing; borrowing; 
prompt liquidation; sacredness of trust-funds, 
personal and corporate; individual moral 
responsibility of directors and officers; trust- 
combinations; strikes; boycotting; limits of 
speculation ; profiting by ambiguities; single tax; 
nationalization of property, etc. 

(d) Christian precepts concerning the civic 
life; for instance: responsibilities of citizen- 


10 


ship; elective franchise; obligations of office; 
class-legislation ; legal oaths; custom-house con- 
science; sumptuary laws; public institutions, 
whether educational, ameliorative, or reforma- 
tory; function of money; standard of money; 
public credit; civic reforms; caucuses, etc. 

(e) Christian precepts concerning the inter- 
national life; for instance: treaties; diplomacy; 
war; arbitration; disarmament; tariff; recipro- 
city ; mankind, etc. 

(f) Christian precepts concerning the eccle- 
siastical life; for instance: sectarianism; comity 
in mission fields; co-operation; unification of 
Christendom, etc. 

(g) Christian precepts concerning the aca- 
demic life; for instance: literary and scientific 
ideals; professional standards of morality ; func- 
tion of the press; copyrights; obligations of 
scholarship, etc. 

In sum, Christian precepts concerning the 
tremendous problems of sociology, present and 
future. 

Not that all the lecturers must agree at every 
point; often there are genuine cases of con- 
science, or reasonable doubt, in which a good 
deal can be justly said on both sides. The 
supreme point is this: Whatever the topic may 


il 


be, the lecturer must discuss it conscientiously, 
in light of Christ’s own teachings and character; 
and so awaken the consciences of his listeners, 
making their moral sense more acute. 

4. Man’s Body-Nature——Fourthly, man’s 
body-nature. For example: Christian precepts 
concerning environment; heredity; health; 
cleanliness; temperance; self-control; athletics; 
public hygiene; tenement-houses; prophylactics; 
the five senses; treatment of animals, etc. 

In sum, the range of topics for this Lecture- 
ship in Christian Ethics should include whatever 
tends to society-building, or perfectation of per- 
sonal character in Christ. Surely here is mate- 
rial enough, and this without any need of dupli- 
cation, for centuries to come. 


III. Sprrit oF THE LECTURESHIP. 


Thirdly, the Spirit of this Lectureship. Every 
lecture must be presented from the standpoint 
of Jesus Christ. It must be distinctly under- 
stood, and the founder of the Lectureship can- 
not emphasize the point too strongly, that every 
lecture in these successive courses must be unam- 
biguously Christian; that is, from the viewpoint 
of the divine Son of Mary. This Lectureship 
must be something more than a lectureship in 


12 


moral philosophy, or in church theology; it 
must be a lectureship in Christian morality, or 
practical ethics from the standpoint of Christ’s 
own personal character, example, and teachings. 


IV. QUALIFICATION OF THE LECTURER. 


Fourthly, the Qualification for the lecturer. 
The founder hopes that the lecturer may often 
be, perhaps generally, a layman; for instance: 
a merchant, a banker, a lawyer, a statesman, 
a physician, a scientist, a professor, an artist, 
a craftsman; for Christian ethics is a matter of 
daily practical life rather than of metaphysical 
theology. The founder cares not what the 
ecclesiastical connection of the lecturer may be; 
whether a Baptist or an Episcopalian, a Quaker 
or a Latinist; for Christian ethics as Christ’s 
behavior is not a matter of ecclesiastical ordina- 
tion or of sect. The only pivotal condition of 
the Lectureship in this particular is this: The 
lecturer himself must be unconditionally loyal 
to our only King, our Lord Jesus Christ; for 
Jesus Christ himself is the world’s true, ever- 
lasting Ethics. 


THE GOLDEN RULE. 


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bbs eu a) oe 





THE INAUGURAL LECTURE. 


THE GOLDEN RULE. 


Gratefully appreciating the peculiar honor 
done me by the Provost and Trustees of the 
University of Pennsylvania in inviting me to 
deliver the introductory address in the Lecture- 
ship in Christian Ethics, it is not inappropriate 
that in this inaugural address I should give to 
those friends who ask for it, and to the public so 
warmly interested in our great University, the 
outline, the purpose, the range, and the spirit 
of this Lectureship, and the qualification for 
the Lecturer.* 

I. PuRPOsE OF THE LECTURESHIP.—And, first, 
the Purpose of the Lectureship. This purpose 
is not to trace the history of the various ethical 
theories; this is already admirably done in our 
own noble University. Nor is it the purpose to 
teach theology, whether natural, Biblical, or 
ecclesiastical. But the purpose of this Lecture- 
ship is to teach Christian Ethics; that is to say, 





* This will appear in every published address on this foundation 
(15) 


16 


the practical application of the precepts and 
behavior of Jesus CuristT to everyday life. 

And this is the greatest of the sciences. It is 
a great thing to know astronomy; for it is the 
science of mighty orbs, stupendous distances, 
majestic adjustments in time and space. It is 
a great thing to know biology; for it is the 
science of living organisms—of starting, growth, 
health, movements, life itself. It is a great 
thing to know law; for it is the science of legis- 
lation, government, equity, civilization. It is 
a great thing to know philosophy; for it is the 
science of men and things. It is a great thing 
to know theology; for it is the science of God. 
But what avails it to know everything in space 
from atom to star, everything in time from 
protoplasm to Deity, if we do not know how to 
manage ourselves amid the complex, delicate, 
ever-varying duties of daily life? What will it 
profit a man if he gain the whole world—the 
world geographical, commercial, political, 
intellectual, and after all lose his own soul? 
What can a University give in exchange for a 
Christlike character? Thus it is that ethics is 
the science of sciences. Very significant is the 
motto of our own noble University—‘‘ Litere 
Sine Moribus Vane.”’ 


17 


And Jesus of Nazareth is the supreme ethical 
authority. When we come to receive from him 
our final awards, he will not ask, ‘‘What was 
your theory of atoms? What did you think 
about evolution? What was your doctrine of 
atonement? What was your mode of bap- 
tism?'’ But he will ask, ‘““What did you do 
with Me? Did you accept Me as your personal 
standard of character? Were you a practical, 
everyday Christian?’’ Christian Ethics will 
be the judgment test. 

In sum, the purpose of this Lectureship in 
Christian Ethics is to build up human character 
after the model of Jesus Christ’s. 

Il. RANGE oF THE LEcTURESHIP.—Secondly, 
the Range of the Lectureship. This range 
should be as wide as human society itself. The 
following is offered in way of general outline 
and suggestive hints, each hint being of course 
but a specific or technical illustration growing 
out of some vaster underlying Principle. 

1. Man’s Heart-Nature.—And, first, man’s 
religious nature. For example: Christian (not 
merely ethical) precepts concerning man’s 
capacity for religion; worship; communion; 
divineness ; immortality ; duty of religious observ- 
ances; the Beatitudes; in brief, Manliness in 
Christ. 


18 


2. Man’s Mind-Nature——Secondly, man’s 
intellect-nature. For example: Christian pre- 
cepts concerning reason ; imagination ; invention ; 
esthetics; language, whether spoken, written, 
sung, builded, painted, chiseled, acted, etc. 

3. Man’s Soctety-Nature.—Thirdly, man’s 
society-nature. For example: 

(a) Christian precepts concerning the per- 
sonal life; for instance: conscientiousness, hon- 
esty, truthfulness, charity, chastity, courage, 
independence, chivalry, patience, altruism, etc. 

(b) Christian precepts concerning the family 
life; for instance: marriage; divorce; duties of 
husbands, wives, parents, children, kindred, 
servants; place of woman, etc. 

(c) Christian precepts concerning the business 
life; for instance: rights of labor; rights of capi- 
tal; right of pecuniary independence; living 
within means; life insurance; keeping morally 
accurate accounts; endorsing; borrowing; 
prompt liquidation; sacredness of trust-funds, 
personal and corporate; individual moral respon- 
sibility of directors and officers; trust-combina- 
tions; strikes; boycotting; limits of speculation ; 
profiting by ambiguities; single tax ; nationaliza- 
tion of property, etc. 

(d) Christian precepts concerning the civic 


19 


life; for instance: responsibilities of citizenship; 
elective franchise; obligations of office; class- 
legislation ; legal oaths ; custom-house conscience; 
sumptuary laws; public institutions, whether 
educational, ameliorative, or reformatory; 
function of money; standard of money; public 
credit; civic reforms; caucuses, etc. 

(e) Christian precepts concerning the inter- 
national life; for instance: treaties; diplomacy ; 
war; arbitration; disarmament; tariff; reci- 
procity ; mankind, etc. 

(f) Christian precepts concerning the ecclesias- 
tical life; for instance: sectarianism; comity in 
mission fields; co-operation ; unification of Chris- 
tendom, etc. 

(g) Christian precepts concerning the aca- 
demic life; for instance: literary and scientific 
ideals; professional standards of morality; func- 
tion of the press; copyrights; obligations of 
scholarship, etc. 

In sum, Christian precepts concerning the 
tremendous problems of sociology, present and 
future. 

Not that all the lecturers must agree at every 
point; often there are genuine cases of con- 
science, or reasonable doubt, in which a good 
deal can be justly said on both sides. The 


20 


supreme point is this: Whatever the topic may 
be, the lecturer must discuss it conscientiously, 
in light of Christ’s own teachings and character; 
and so awaken the consciences of his listeners, 
making their moral sense more acute. 

4. Man's Body-Nature.—Fourthly, man’s 
body-nature. For example: Christian precepts 
concerning environment; heredity; health; 
cleanliness; temperance; self-control; athletics; 
public hygiene; tenement-houses; prophylacties ; 
the five senses; treatment of animals, etc. 

In sum, the range of topics for this Lecture- 
ship in Christian Ethics should include whatever 
tends to society-building, or perfectation of per- 
sonal character in Christ. Surely here is mate- 
rial enough, and this without any need of dupli- 
cation, for centuries to come. 

Ill. Sprrir oF THE LeEcTURESHIP.—Thirdly, 
the Spirit of this Lectureship. Every lecture 
must be presented from the standpoint of Jesus 
Christ. It must be distinctly understood, and 
the founder of the Lectureship cannot emphasize 
the point too strongly, that every lecture in 
these successive courses must be unambiguously 
Christian; that is, from the viewpoint of the 
divine Son of Mary. This Lectureship must be 
something more than a lectureship in moral 


21 


philosophy, or in church theology; it must be a 
lectureship in Christian morality, or practical 
ethics from the standpoint of Christ’s own per- 
sonal character, example, and teachings. 

IV. QUALIFICATION OF THE LECTURER.— 
Fourthly, the Qualification for the Lecturer. 
The founder hopes that the lecturer may often 
be, perhaps generally, a layman; for instance: 
a merchant, a banker, a lawyer, a statesman, a 
physician, a scientist, a professor, an artist, a 
craftsman; for Christian ethics is a matter of 
daily practical life rather than of metaphysical 
theology. The founder cares not what the 
ecclesiastical connection of the lecturer may be; 
whether a Baptist or an Episcopalian, a Quaker 
or a Latinist; for Christian ethics as Christ’s 
behavior is not a matter of ecclesisastical ordina- 
tion or of sect. The only pivotal condition of 
the Lectureship in this particular is this: The 
lecturer himself must be unconditionally loyal 
to our only King, our Lord Jesus Christ; for 
Jesus Christ himself is the world’s true, ever- 
lasting Ethics. 


Having thus rapidly outlined the purpose, 
the range, the spirit and the qualification of this 
Lectureship in Christian Ethics, let me devote 


22 


the remainder of this inaugural address to a 
study of the Golden Rule, venturing to present 
it as a sort of sample of what this Lectureship 
ought to be, alike in theme, in scope, and in 
manner. 


All things therefore whatever ye wish that 
men should do to you, so do ye also to them; 
for this is the law and the prophets.—Matthew 
wT 


It is our King’s law of altruism or social 
equilibrium. 


“THEREFORE” THE TELLING WorpD.—Is this 
law to be taken absolutely, in all literalness of 
strict construction? Let me put the case con- 
cretely. Here is an ignoble drone, begging alms; 
does the Golden Rule require us to do to him as 
he wants, and so pauper him in his wicked lazi- 
ness? Or here is a reeling sot, thirsting for 
another potation; does the Golden Rule require 
us to gratify his accursed thirst? You see at 
once that this Rule is not to be taken in absolute 
literalness. What then does our King mean? 
Note then that the emphatic, telling word in 
this command is the illative conjunction ‘‘ There- 
fore;’’ thus connecting the Golden Rule with 
what has immediately gone before: 


23 


What man is there of you, who, if his son shall 
ask a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he shall 
ask a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts to your 
children, how much more will your Father who 
is in heaven give good things to those who ask 
him? All things therefore whatever ye wish that 
men should do to you, so do ye also to them; 
for this is the law and the prophets.—Matthew 
7: Q-12. 

It is an appeal to God’s fatherhood. It is as 
though our King had said: 

Since God is your Father and treats you as 
sons, giving you good gifts according as you ask 
him; therefore do ye yourselves have your 
Father’s own spirit, doing to others as he does 
to you, giving them the good gifts they ask of 
you, even as he gives you the good gifts you ask 
of him. Your Father treats you as his sons; 
therefore treat your fellows as your brothers; 


for common fatherhood implies common brother- 
hood. 


Thus this illative conjunction ‘‘therefore,"’ 
instead of seeming abrupt or inconsequent, is 
profoundly connective and morally inevitable, 
illumining the Golden Rule with a blaze of light. 
Your heavenly Father gives good gifts to the 
sons who ask him; therefore whatever you as sons 
of God—actuated by your Father’s spirit, hav- 


24 


ing his sense of right and propriety, feeling his 
love—would that men should do to you, do ye 
also to them. In other words, treat your 
brothers from your Father’s viewpoint. Thus 
treating them, you will neither judge censoriously 
nor give that which is holy to dogs; but you 
will live as God’s sons, like him giving good gifts 
to them that ask you, being merciful even as 
your heavenly Father is merciful. Thus treat- 
ing your brothers, even those who are your 
enemies, you will be children of your Father who 
is in heaven; for he causes his sun to rise on evil 
men and good, and sends his rain on righteous 
and unrighteous. Be ye therefore perfect, even 
as your Father who is in heaven is perfect. In 
fact, the Golden Rule is the criterion of charac- 
ter; our sonhood to God is tested by our brother- 
hood to man. Our Father who art in heaven, 
forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven 
our debtors. 

ORIGINALITY OF THE GOLDEN RULE.—Thus 
interpreted, the Golden Rule is profoundly 
original. I am aware indeed that cavillers 
allege that this Rule was already one of the 
commonplaces in Jewish and classic literature. 
Thus Gibbon, speaking of Calvin’s persecution 
of Servetus, says: 


25 


A Catholic inquisitor yields the same obedi- 
ence he requires: but Calvin violated the 
golden rule of doing as he would be done by, a 
rule which I read in a moral treatise of Isocrates 
(in Nicole, tom. I, p. 93, edit. Battie) four 
hundred years before the publication of the 
gospel.—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 
chap. LIV, note 36. 

But, as Guizot has partly pointed out, Gibbon, 
notwithstanding his eminent scholarship, makes 
here a twofold mistake. First, he misquotes 
Isocrates by representing him as uttering an 
affirmative maxim, ‘“‘Do to others as ye would 


’ 


that men should do to you;’’ whereas the 
maxim of Isocrates is merely negative, ‘‘What 
would anger you, if done to you by others, that 
do not to them.’’ Secondly, Gibbon misquotes 
Jesus himself by overlooking this pivotal word 
‘therefore’? (that is, in view of Christ’s teaching 
of God’s Fatherhood), and so misses the very gist 
of the Golden Rule. In other words, the maxim 
of Isocrates appeals to self-love; the maxim 
of Jesus appeals to God’s Fatherhood. Accord- 
ingly, Gibbon’s sneer is as unscholarly as it is 
malignant. No, the Golden Rule is in its spirit 
absolutely original. 

EPITOME OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.—And now 
observe how the Lord of the Kingdom sum- 


26 


marizes the Old Covenant in the words which he 
adds to his Golden Rule: ‘‘For this is the law 
and the prophets.’’ It recalls the fuller state- 
ment which he afterward made in answer to the 
lawyer who imagined he was raising an embar- 
rassing question when he asked the new Teacher, 
saying, ‘‘Master, which is the great command- 
ment in the law?’’ Jesus said to him: 


Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy 
mind. This is the great and first command- 
ment. A second is like it, Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself. On these two command- 
ments hang all the law and the prophets.— 
Matthew 22: 35-40. 


That is to say, the loving your God with all 
your heart is the being true to God as your 
Father; and the loving your neighbor as your- 
self is the being true to man as your brother. 
And so it comes to pass that love is indeed the 
fulfilling of the law, the very bond of perfect- 
ness; for God himself is love. If then we would 
be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect, 
we must be merciful even as our heavenly 
Father is merciful. And of this perfect love our 
King himself, God’s firstborn among many 
brothers, is the perfect example. He not only 


27 


taught the Golden Rule, he also practised the 
Golden Rule in the divinest of ways; loving his 
neighbor not only as himself, but even more 
than himself; laying down his own life in very 
love for his foes. Verily, he came not to destroy 
the law, or the prophets; he came to complete 
them. 

THE GOLDEN RuULE MaAnkIND’s COLOSSAL 
BaLancEe.—Thus interpreted, the Golden Rule, 
what is it but mankind’s colossal balance; 
God's own constellation of Libra in the spiritual 
heavens? And when this colossal balance shall 
be truly adjusted, then will every man indeed 
love his neighbor as himself; that is to say, his 
neighbor will become to him as though he him- 
self were duplicated, his neighbor becoming to 
him his own other self. 

Let 
me add that no one can really obey the Golden 


NEED OF AN ALTRUISTIC IMAGINATION. 





Rule in its spirit without exercising an altruistic 
imagination. For why was this Godlike gift 
bestowed on man? Godlike I say; for even 
Deity himself—I say it reverently—did not 
create till he had first imagined; the creating 
idea or plan preceding the created thing. 
Faith itself, what is faith but a fransfigured 
imagination? And no man, I repeat, can truly 


28 


obey the Golden Rule of doing to others as he 
would have others do to himself until he exer- 
cises the otheristic imagination, placing himself 
as it were in their position. ‘‘Put Yourself in 
His Place”’ is the title of one of the novels of the 
late Charles Reade, written, as you remember, 
against certain social wrongs. It is, so to 
speak, an echo of St. Paul’s saying to the 
Corinthians, ‘‘Let no one seek his own, but each 
his neighbor’s good;’’ and again to the Philip- 
pians, ‘Regarding not each one his own things, 
but each one also the things of others;’’ that is 
to say, Let each of you exercise the otheristic 
imagination. I have spoken of the Golden Rule 
as the Golden Balance for corporate mankind, 
holding the members of the one social body in 
functional and moral equilibrium. And the 
justness of the balance will be in proportion to 
the sensibility of the otheristic imagination. 
Let me press this point; for it is the very deli- 
cacy of it which makes it practically momentous. 

This sense of moral equilibrium will broaden 
each man’s horizon, reminding him that he is 
but a fraction of one great social unity—and 
must therefore look to the things of others as 
well as to his own things—. e. love his neighbor 
as himself. 


29 


SAMPLES OF OTHERISTIC IMAGINATION.—To 
illustrate: Were we in the habit, when con- 
sidering our relations and duties to others, of 
putting ourselves first of all in their respective 
places, asking ourselves what we would think it 
right to do were our respective places exchanged, 
not one of us would for a single moment take 
personal advantage, for instance, of environ- 
ment, misfortune, necessity, ignorance, legal 
ambiguity, verbal quibble, or anything of the 
kind; not one of us would talk loudly in a hotel 
corridor at night or tramp over an upper floor, 
or take up too much room in a church-pew, or 
talk too long in a prayer-meeting, or keep a 
friend waiting beyond the time agreed upon, or 
write a letter of inquiry without enclosing a 
return-stamp, or chafe a professor with a 
thoughtless prank, or abash a student with a 
professorial snub, or keep a borrowed book, or 
try to escape personal responsibility and trouble 
by endorsing the appeal of an unknown eccle- 
siastical visitor, (for even we Protestants have 
our own mendicant orders of begging friars and 
little sisters), and benignly getting rid of the 
unwelcome stranger by speeding him with a 
letter of recommendation to the Christian 
brotherhood in general. It is just the absence 


% 


of these little weights of altruistic consideration— 
these tiny ounces and drams and scruples and 
grains of otheristic imagination—which keeps 
the social balance in perpetual oscillation or 
unstable equilibrium. Beware then of cherish- 
ing a selfish idiosyncrasy, or a personal eccen- 
tricity which throws the social forces out of 
focus. To use a phrase of our scientific friends, 
add the constant which is needed for personal 
equation. Here doubtless is one of the reasons 
why our King in appointing his Seventy sent 
them forth two and two, in order that the 
peculiarities of the one might be balanced by the 
peculiarities of the other, thus preserving the 
general equilibrium. On the other hand, were 
we in the habit of cultivating conscientiously 
as well as affectionately the otheristic imagina- 
tion, then we would be able to obey the Golden 
Rule indeed, becoming eyes to the blind, feet 
to the lame, fathers to the needy, searchers out 
of the cause of him whom we knew not. Then 
the scales of society would be in stable and 
sacred equilibrium, demand and supply balanc- 
ing each other, even as it is written: 


He that gathered much had nothing over, and 
he that gathered little had no lack.—J/ Cor- 
inthians 8: 15. 


31 


What our poor world needs is not divison of 
spoils, but reciprocity of life; not compassion, 
but co-passion; not pity, but sympathy. Yes, 
there is something which mankind needs more 
than law or liberty or comfort or even education ; 
mankind needs the sense of a corporate life, 
the consciousness of esprit de corps. For human 
society is, so to speak, one vast moral corpora- 
tion, in which are no limited or silent partners, 
but in which all have a joint interest, sharing 
alike or at least reciprocally the profits and 
losses of our common corporate life. Each 
individual a specific organ having its own 
definite function to discharge in the one organ- 
ism; each nation having its own personal 
mission, and all nations constituting one com- 
mon nation the one august body of Mazkind. 
And when mankind shall reach this exalted 
stage of social equilibrium, then will it fulfil, 
though in a transfigured sense, the long-ago 
military order of King David: 

As his share is that goes down to the battle, so 
shall his share be that tarries by the baggage; 
they shall share alike.—J Samuel 30: 24. 

THE GOLDEN AGE.—This then is our King’s 
law of altruism, or doctrine of society. As our 
Father loves us, so we are to love our brothers. 


32 


The Golden Rule is the golden key to the Golden 
Age. In that perfected society, that ideal Com- 
monwealth, that Kingdom of God, which will 


ae 


yet most surely come, wherein ‘‘all men’s good 
shall be each man’s rule,’’ the lowly Nazarene 
will himself be enthroned in the heart of man- 
kind, his golden sceptre being the Golden Rule. 

THE GOLDEN RULE IN SCHOLARSHIP.—Re- 
membering that this Lectureship in Christian 
Ethics is a University Lectureship, let me pro- 
ceed to apply the principle of the Golden Rule 
more particularly to the academic life. 

TRUE PurRPOsE oF EpucaTion.—First of all, 
let me remind you of the true purpose of educa- 
tion. Of course, nothing is triter in this connec- 
tion than to recall the etymology of the word 


’ 


‘“‘education.’’ To ‘‘educate”’ is to educe, bring 
out, draw forth; in short, to make most of a 
child. All this is hackneyed enough. Vastly 
more important it is to ask: For what purpose 
do we educate or make most of this child? Do 
we educate him for his own sake, or for the sake 
of others? To cultivate him as an individuality 
for his own sake, or as a corporate member of 
the one social body? To unfold him egoistically, 
or altruistically? Just here is one of the radical 
differences between knowledge as mere knowl- 


33 


edge, which as such may be only egoistic; and 
wisdom, which as such is altruistic. For a man 
may be thoroughly versed in all the lore of the 
universities—civic, historic, literary, philosoph- 
ical, scientific, theological—he may know all 
that has been or can be known about matter, 
mind, man, nature, things—yet if he has not 
learned how to use all this magnificent lore, not 
only for the advantage of himself and family, but 
also for the advantage of his fellowmen, who 
with himself constitute corporate mankind— 
this so-called learned man is only a superficial 
scholar; he is not a wise man; he is not in the 
true sense of the word an educated, unfolded 
man. How many brilliant instances of splendid 
erudition there are; for example, 


Philologists, who chase 

A panting syllable through time and space, 

Start it at home, and hunt it in the dark 

To Gaul, to Greece, and into Noah’s ark— 
CowPeEr’s Retirement— 


who after all, in the majestic realm of Christian 
ethics, are no wiser than poor idiots! 


CHRISTIAN EpucaTion.—For mere _ intelli- 





gence will not secure us the heavenly immor- 
tality. Satan is intelligent; in fact, intelligence 
is probably his strongest point; nevertheless 


34 


he is still Satan, his name in Hebrew being 
Abaddon; in Greek, Apollyon; in English, De- 
stroyer. Knowledge did not save Chaldea or 
Egypt or Greece or Rome. Something more 
than knowledge is needed in order to be truly 
wise; it is personal religion, or the knowledge 
which knows how to use knowledge wisely; 
that is, in the long run celestially. What avails 
it if your boy, about to enter his profession, that 
he embarks in a ship however gallant, and knows 
every part of her from keel to pennant, and is 
supplied with every chart, and understands 
every rule of navigation—what avails all this 
if after all he has no peaceful haven to make at 
the end of his voyage, because untrained in the 
art of calculating his moral longitude from the 
divine meridian of the Nazarene? After all, 
it is the Bible which is the keystone of our 
national prosperity. Say what you will, it is 
the Church—not, of course, the church as a 
human organization, whether Baptist or Epis- 
copal or Methodist or Presbyterian—but the 
Church as the aggregate of Christly characters, 
whatever the denomination, which is the real 
secret of American greatness. Education and 
Christianity, the School and the Church, facts 
and truths, knowledge and wisdom, these are 


35 


the two colossal piers of the Divine Mediator’s 
bridge across the river of Time. Here after all 
is the secret of redeeming your gamins, your 
waifs, your ‘‘delinquent children.’’ Listen to 
Charles Dickens: 


Hang me all the thieves in Gibbet street to- 
morrow, and the place will be crammed with 
fresh tenants in a week. But catch me up the 
young thieves from the gutter and the doorsteps; 
take Jonathan Wild from the breast; send Mrs. 
Shepard to Bridewell: but take the hale young 
Jack out of her arms; give him some soap 
instead of whipping him for stealing a cake of 
Brown Windsor; teach him the Gospel instead 
of sending him to the treadmill for haunting 
chapels and purloining prayer-books out of the 
pews; put him in the way of filling shop tills 
instead of transporting him when he crawls on 
his hands and knees to empty them; let him 
know that he has a body made for something 
better than to be kicked, bruised, chained, 
pinched with hunger, or clad in prison-gray; let 
him know that he has a soul to be saved: in 
God’s name, take care of the children, somebody ; 
and there will soon be an oldest inhabitant in 
Gibbet street, and never a new one to succeed 
him.—DicxKens’ Household Words. 


“KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.’’—But, be it ever 
borne in mind, that education brings with it 


36 


grave responsibility; and the fuller the educa- 
tion, the graver the responsibility. For, as 
Francis Bacon was wont to say, ‘‘ Knowledge is 
power.’’ For example: Who, in the last 
analysis, administers our governments? Not 
the politicians whom we elect in this or that 
passing campaign; but the scholars who framed 
our majestic Constitution itself; politicians 
come, and, thank God, go; but the Constitution— 
the real power behind the throne—stays. Who, 
in the last analysis, are the real managers of 
your great corporations—your railway com- 
panies and manufacturing syndicates and colos- 
sal mechanical enterprises? Not so much the 
men who sit as the board of directors as the 
scholars whom these directors employ—the 
trained men who understand the laws of nature 
and mechanics and engineering. Who really 
guides your mighty steamers across the trackless 
seas? Not the captain on land, but the scholar 
on deck, who had prepared the Nautical Alma- 
nac. Yes, ‘Knowledge is Power.”’ 

KNOWLEDGE TeEmpts Into Ecoism.—And 
just because knowledge is power, the sense of 
knowledge tempts us into a sense of personal 
superiority. The first temptation in human 
annals was a temptation into the pride of 
knowledge: 


37 


The serpent said to the woman, Ye shall not 
surely die: for God knows that in the day ye 
eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and 
ye shall be as God (gods), knowing good and 
evil.—Genests 3: 4, 5. 


It was an adroit appeal to one of the noblest 
instincts of mankind—the thirst of knowledge. 
It is in an eminent sense the characteristic 
temptation of these modern times. Satan still 
tempts us to become as wise as God. He still 
tempts us to renew the Jewish outlawry during 
the period of the Judges: ‘‘In those days there 
was no king in Israel; every man did that which 
was right in his own eyes.’’ Satan still tempts 
us to say with the king of Babylon: ‘“‘I will 
ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne 
above the stars of God; I will be like the Most 
High.’’ Self-worship is that awful and final 
form of blasphemy which the apostle Paul 
describes when he speaks of the revelation of 
the man of sin, that son of perdition who opposes 
and exalts himself against all that is called God 
or that is worshiped; so that he sits in the temple 
of God, setting himself forth as God. Let us 
take care lest, being puffed up, we also fall into 
the condemnation of the Devil. 

‘KNOWLEDGE PUFFETH UP.’’—For, alas, it is 


38 


as true in our day as it was in St. Paul's that 
‘knowledge puffeth up.’’ Not that the apostle 
denounces knowledge as knowledge; for the 
capacity for knowledge is perhaps man’s highest 
capacity; and Christianity is ever the friend 
of what is highest; and what can be higher than 
to know God, and him whom God has sent, even 
Jesus Christ? And St. Paul himself was a 
shining example of this divinest science. No, 
the knowledge which this apostolic scholar 
denounces was that peculiar kind of professional 
knowledge of sacred mysteries on which the 
false teachers of his day were beginning to pride 
themselves—a kind of religiously aristocratic 


ae 


science already specified as “‘gnosis’’ or “‘gnos- 


’ 


ticism ;’’ as when this same Apostle Paul later 


on wrote to his dear son in the Gospel: 


O Timothy, keep that which is committed to 
thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, 
and oppositions of science falsely so called; 
which some professing have erred concerning 
the faith.—J Timothy 6: 20, 21. 


Or more literally: 


O Timothy, guard the deposit, turning away 
from the profane vain discussions and antitheses 
of the pseudonymed gnosis; which some pro- 
fessing have erred concerning the faith. 


39 


And this kind of knowledge or falsely called 
science does puff up. For when knowledge 
takes the guise of gnosticism or alleged mastery 
of celestial arcana, it not only becomes selfishly 
aristocratic; it also becomes intensely egoistic 
and vaporous. What can be more airy and 
empty than an ancient gnostic, unless, indeed, 
it be a modern agnostic? As Banquo said of the 
vanishing witches of the heath: 


The earth hath bubbles as the water has, 
And these are of them: whither are they 
vanish’d? 


And Macbeth replied: 


Into the air, and what seem’d corporal melted 
As breath into the wind.—Macbeth, I. 3. 


The capacity for distention is an admirable 
thing when used for purposes of pulmonary 
inflation, erial navigation, or even juvenile 
bubble-blowing; but it becomes a distressingly 
bad thing when it takes the form of moral 
levitation, religious tumefaction, or spiritual 
flatulence. The zephyr is delicious, even the 
gale is sometimes invigorating; but it is intoler- 
able to live in the cave of Aolus, everlastingly 
whirled about by wind and whirlwind. 


40 


And what is true of the pride of gnosticism, 
or, to use the modern term, theosophy, is also 
true of the pride of secular knowledge. There 
is something in the very sense of being erudite 
or intellectual that somehow tempts into airy 
self-conceit and mental puffiness. The very 
sense of superior mental attainment is apt to 
separate the scholar from the people, not by the 
upbuilding force of moral growth, but by the 
inflating force of moral emptiness. There is, 
for example, the egoism of pedantry, or erudition 
on a perennial tour of self-exhibition. Again, 
there is the egoism of occultation—mysterious, 
sapient, portentously oracling in mystic cabalas, 
cryptograms, runes; or, if | may draw an expres- 
sion from astronomy, hiding in the circle of 
perpetual occultation. Again, there is the 
egoism of culture for culture's own sake; 
whether as in the medieval scholasticism— 
acute, quibbling, self-centered, but as useless 
as the undertaking 


“To distinguish and divide 
A hair ’twixt south and southwest side;”’ 


or as in the modern dilettantism—aristocratic, 
dainty, supercilious; indulging in a _ choice 
delicacy too refined for the vulgar taste, and 


41 


therefore, like the speech of Hamlet’s first 


” 


player, a ‘‘caviare to the general.’’ Once more, 
there is the egoism of knowledge for the sake of 
the personal profits knowledge may bring; like 
the false prophets of old, “‘judging for reward, 
teaching for hire, divining for money.”’ Recall 
the sad case of Balaam of Mesopotamia. Tak- 
ing into account the age in which he lived, 
Balaam was in an eminent sense a gifted man. 
Keen in insight, sublime in range, poetic in 
expression—Balaam was pre-eminently a son of 
genius. Nevertheless, Balaam was at the same 
time pre-eminently an unprincipled man, ‘“‘fol- 
lowing the rewards of divination, loving the 
wages of wrong-doing, running after hire.”’ 
But why do I go back to the mercenary priests 
and teachers of antiquity? Alas, how many 
modern scholars there are who stand ready to 
sell their scholarship and talents for gold! 
Most lamentable of all, there are even in my own 
sacred profession a few who stand ready to 
adjust their creeds to passing popular caprices: 


What makes all doctrines plain and clear? 
About two hundred pounds a year. 
And that which was prov’d true before 
Prove false again? Two hundred more. 
—BvutTLer’s Hudibras. 


42 


Let Francis Bacon sum up for us this whole 
matter of selfish knowledge or egoistic education: 


The greatest error of all is the mistaking or 
misplacing of the last or furthest end of knowl- 
edge. For men have entered into a desire of 
learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a 
natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; 
sometimes to entertain their minds with variety 
and delight; sometimes for ornament and repu- 
tation; and sometimes to enable them to 
victory of wit and contradiction; and most 
times for lucre and false profession (alas, Bacon 
himself, ‘‘The wisest, brightest, meanest of man- 
kind,”’ did not heed his own warning); and 
seldom sincerely to give a true account of their 
gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men; as 
if there were sought in knowledge a couch, 
whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; 
or a terrace, for a wandering and variable mind 
to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or 
a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself 
upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for 
strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or 
sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of 
the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.— 
Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. VI, page 134. 


‘‘Love BuitpEetH Up.’’—And now remember 
that although St. Paul asserts that ‘‘knowledge 
puffs up,’’ he immediately adds that “‘love 


43 


builds up.’’ And love or Christian altruism is 
the greatest of builders; for educated Christian 
character is the greatest of structures. Chris- 
tian scholarship is the layman’s university. 
Who founded the great universities of Christen- 
dom? Who founded the University of Oxford? 
Harvard College? Yale College? Princeton 
College? University of Pennsylvania? Brown 
University? Williams College? Vassar Col- 
lege? Wellesley College? Bryn Mawr College? 
Christian men and women. Who were the 
school committees in that glorious New England 
which has shaped the noble school system of 
America? Christian clergymen. Who are try- 
ing to uplift the humbler classes in our cities to- 
day’? Christian men and women. And who 
are the men, let me ask, who in these latter days 
affect to sneer at Christianity as an ignorant and 
effete superstition but the very men whose 
chief title to distinction in some cases is that 
their diplomas come from the very institutions 
whose fundamental principles they stupidly 
deride? God pity the miserable ingrates! 

Yes, I love this word ‘‘build.”’ I think that 
the craft of making things—whether in the 
realm of matter or in the realm of spirit—is the 
noblest of crafts. And love, I repeat, is the 


44 


sublimest of builders. For while egoistic knowl- 
edge expands by distention and ends in collapse, 
altruistic knowledge expands by construction 
and ends in edifice. Knowledge as mere knowl- 
edge is apt to swell into a balloon; love is sure 
to grow into a minster. Satan’s amour propre 
rears Towers of Babel; Jesus’ Golden Rule rears 
the Temple of God. Ah, here is the real office 
of knowledge; it is to be the servant of love. 
The true science, the genuine art—oh, that 
everybody understood and believed it!—is to 
know how to build. Here is the acme of human 
genuis; here is the culmination of human 
majesty. As Coleridge sings: 

’Tis the sublime of man, 
Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves 
Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole. 
This fraternizes man, this constitutes 


Our charities and bearings. 
—COoLERIDGE’s Religious Musings. 


May God be pleased to accept this Lectureship 
in Christian Ethics, and bless it to the weal of the 
University of Pennsylvania and to the upbuild- 
ing of Mankind! 


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